


For Sunlight

by sparklyslug, wrecked_anon



Series: Out of the Orchard [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Reconciliation, feels porn, fwp: feelings without plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyslug/pseuds/sparklyslug, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrecked_anon/pseuds/wrecked_anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"It wasn't you." Tony inhales once; exhales.</em>
</p><p>Ten years of fruitless searching ends two weeks after Tony stops looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Sunlight

Tony knows the footsteps behind him better than his own, even if he hasn’t heard the sound of them crossing his workshop in ten years. And it figures, it just fucking figures. Two weeks since Hlidskjalf, trail gone cold and nothing to see from that incredible height but years and years of effort wasted. The look of sorry pity on Thor’s kind face had said enough, and Tony had gone home at last. What passed for home, anyway.

Of course Loki would choose to appear now, in Tony’s own workshop, on Tony’s own planet. He’d had more of a speech prepared, before. But he doesn’t know how much time he has, so he just squares his shoulders and turns.

The sight of Loki almost undoes him. If he had looked the same, unmarked by the years, it might’ve been easier. But he doesn’t, and it’s not. The similarities are there, but they’re laid over with lines of exhaustion and marked by the dust of travelling from whatever corner of the universe he’s been hiding in. Still, the sight of him almost knocks Tony right off course.

But he knows better than to let this moment hang. Because he’d always known that Loki could appear in a flash. And he’d learned that Loki could vanish just as quickly too. Better to jump right in, even if he can’t stop himself from drinking in the sight of Loki, in front of him at last.

"It wasn't you." Tony inhales once; exhales. _Maybe this time if you don't screw it up he won't leave you stranded for another decade with just the memory of the absence of heat._ He pushes forward. "I knew it, with that look on your face. You left so abruptly and I knew."

 _Inhale once more. Hold it; don't hyperventilate._ "As soon as you were gone I started going back through the footage, ran a hundred different scans. I still don't know who it was but they even fooled JARVIS"

"It took weeks of searching, to finally have the proof for it. I was losing it, with each day that you didn't come back. But I had to _know_. That fourth week I finally made myself open those files from when you let me run scanners on your magic. I ran one last test on the footage and compared the signature with yours and then there it was, staring me in the face."

Loki lets him spin out of words, eyes on Tony's face and expression blank.

"You've ruined me for anyone else, you know" Tony said softly.

Loki doesn’t reply. And suddenly there's no feedback loop, and Tony feels himself floundering. He watches the fire door shut on Loki’s expression and knows he’s making things worse. Tony remembers this game. He still knows the rules, and knows how he should be playing but it gets to him anyway.

 

~

 

Loki lets Tony make it worse, because he needs to prove to himself that he never should have let himself start this in the first place. He's proving himself right for all the doubts and fears and feeling that this could never last.

Because better to do it himself, while he can maintain control. It was going to happen anyway

Because if there is one rule in Loki's universe, it's that all good things come to an end.

And oh, this was a _good_ thing. But not a thing, he thinks, that he was ever meant to have. Certainly not for long.

To have had it at all is perhaps gift enough. And if he tells himself that over and over again perhaps he'll start to believe it. Well, maybe one day. Not this one. Better not to think at all, today. Today, he must just do what he has to do. Get it over with. In, and out.

He's immortal, he's never felt the need to hurry much before. It's a strange feeling to get now, but he wasn't ready for the open pleading in Tony's expression, nor the quiet desperation undergirding each syllable. He wants this to end, to finish this as quickly as possible.

But Tony is not cooperating. He's refusing to play along, he's being so... so... he's reaching for Loki, with full sincerity and heart split wide open, as he had only a handful of times in the past before, even when things were good, even when they felt at their rightest.

And Loki has to hate him for that. Because it is cursedly so like Tony to be contrary at this time and make this more... difficult than it needs to be.

And Loki has to hate him for that a little. Or he would, if Loki could find it in himself to actually hate Tony. But no, they'd built too much between them, even in that short time, even ten years prior. Loki’s had ten years to work at hating Tony, to try and build it up piece by piece. Hate's always come naturally to him before, bubbling up out of him easily, with enough force to wrap a harness around and _use_.

But not this time. He's tried, but he can't get it to work like that, not with Tony. Not even after ten years of trying _hard_ to hate him, when what he really does...  what he really...

He's missed him.

The realization is is like a shock, or maybe more like an avalanche, triggered by a tug of that mouth that he'd spent hundreds of hours devouring along with every other inch of this stinking, breathing, _mortal_ human being.

Ten years have changed him, Loki can see it, but he is the same, nonetheless; and Loki can see that too, can track the identical way Tony blinks rapidly when he's trying to modulate his expression, can see the muscles and tendons standing out in his clenched fists and can still remember how they feel under his touch, how they feel over his skin, as vividly as if he had just taken Tony's hand a moment ago.

He is sure that Tony still burns as hot as did was then too, and that spark that... that maddening, incurable _thing_ that Tony is, that he has—that seems to drive him, enslave him, rule him—that hasn't changed either, and Loki finds that he wants it again.

It has, after all, been such a _long_ time since he's been warm. So long, in fact, that when Tony runs out of words and steps into Loki's space, it's everything Loki can do to control the tidal force of his sudden need and stop himself from reaching, stiff armed, just to touch, and feel the stubbled cheek beneath his fingertips, the ratcheting up of Tony's already frantic heartbeat, visible too in the soft hollow of his neck where Loki used to kiss him.

It all tunnels down into that one desire, just to slide his thumb over Tony's bottom lip. To feel Tony's mouth part at his touch. To see those eyes, luxuriously lashed and always somehow seeming to know Loki better than he wants to be known, flutter closed.

But he can't. He can’t. Though Tony's eyes flicker down to Loki's lips too, and it doesn’t take much to see that he’s struggling against similar impulses. Tony’s self-control is worse than Loki's, and always has been. Loki hasn't planned for this, though he should have. Because if Tony reaches for him, if he touches him, Loki has to push him away. Has to.

But he is less certain now, with Tony looking up into his face, that he would be able to

Tony's eyes are questioning, and Loki can see the war happening behind them— _Would you leave me again? Will you leave me right now?_ —and the fear, clear enough in how Tony's hands tremble just a little. _If you did, could I find you again? Would you let me find you this time?_

Loki inhales, holds it. Exhales. Feels every day of the last ten years heavy on his shoulders, as surely as he sees it weighing heavy in the sag of each new-formed wrinkle beneath Tony's eyes.

"Is eternity long enough to do penance for one's sins?"

Tony's gaze flickers over Loki’s face, perhaps surprised that Loki is saying anything at all. "I don't know about eternity," he says. "I haven't got that kind of time.

"What I have had, is ten years. Ten years of penance for my sin, Loki. Multiply that by whatever factor of infinity that matches your 'eternity'?" Tony’s lips twitch, just a little, a smile or a grimace or maybe a suppressed sign of deeper feeling. "Pretty good match for my idea of hell. And I wouldn't wish that on you, Loki."

Tony reaches forward, bringing his hands up to frame the sides of Loki's face—not touching, not coming close enough to touch. Loki is relieved because to be touched now would be... too much. Just to have Tony's hands there, close enough to feel the warmth of them against his skin, it almost too much as it is. Loki wants to close his eyes, wants to run. but he can't look away from Tony's face.

"Why don't we forget about penance?" Tony says. "Haven't we had enough of that already?"

Something breaks inside Loki's carefully constructed facade and the walls tumble, letting disbelief and something akin to panic reign unchecked across his face. His eyes widen of their own accord and he cannot stop the sharp intake of breath that chokes its way into his bowstring-tight chest.

Loki's already reconstructing on the next exhale but Tony has seen too much. he's caught the moment, and there is a flash of triumph, or hope, something less noble than both and more powerful than either, because while Loki was learning every inch of this man, Tony was learning him back.

Tony lets his hands travel the short distance that had been all that had tethered Loki to his sense of control and purpose, and he touches Loki's face.

Loki had remembered the touch, he had remembered the feeling of those hands, but memory doesn't compare to this. The visceral heat of this touch, the press of Tony's skin against his own, the way Tony’s palms cradle Loki's jaw and thumbs swipe gently, fondly, over Loki's cheek with all the quick thoughtlessness of a learned movement. Muscle memory.

And it can only be muscle memory that makes Loki bring his hands up to wrap tight around the backs of Tony's upper arms, keeping him from moving closer, or moving away, Loki is terrifyingly unsure which.

It's clear that Tony is unsure too, but he's always been one for risk and, even in Loki's firm grasp, leans forward, forehead coming to rest on the unyielding leather of Loki's chestplate. Loki can smell the citrus honey of the same shampoo brand he's been using for ten years. Can feel the tickle of Tony's soft hair against the skin of his neck and remember all the nights they'd fallen asleep tangled in each other's and in Tony’s crisp sheets.

Tony inhales, holds it. Exhales. And in a voice barely louder than a whisper, says simply, "stay."

Always the wild card. Always the variable that Loki cannot plan for, can never predict, never saw coming. In battle or in bed, it was always the same. Is always the same. Because had Tony said anything else—another word, an apology, a mention of forgivenes—Loki would not have been blown back by the pressure of a decade's worth of pain, suddenly released.

He closes his eyes, because he can't move at all. If Tony wasn't there, a weight against his chest and in his arms, perhaps he would have staggered back. Instead his hands, moving so slowly that he cannot, cannot act as though he isn't aware of what he's doing, slide up Tony's arms, and move around his back. Until he is holding Tony, holding him properly, arms tight around him.

And this, this aches with the memory of mornings spent like this, of holding Tony to him when they were too exhausted to move any more. The memory of when this, nothing more than this, was enough.

Dare he think that it could be once more? With ten years of absence between them?

He pulls away from Tony, whose body follows him backward until Loki puts his hands on each shoulder, and stands apart to search Tony's face for any indication of insincerity.

Tony lets him, says nothing until Loki's eyes meet his, and repeats once more, "Stay."

Loki had planned for this. Had meant to say things, do things, to direct this, their final meeting. Because final it would have to be, and Loki would be prepared for it.

Or _thought_ he was prepared for it. But Tony is laying himself open to him again, warm and alive and there in Loki's arms, under his hands, looking into his face without any more anger. Just hope. And fear.

And Loki had prepared. But not for this.

It occurs to him now, studying Tony's face, that he also hasn't prepared for what comes after. For leaving Tony, for turning away and facing the time—years, centuries, eons— that would follow. He has not prepared for the cold that will follow. That he knows now must follow. If he leaves.

Perhaps it is not as slow as it feels. But Loki moves his hand to Tony's neck, to rest against his pulse. The other drifts up to Tony's face, just brushing against the line of Tony's jaw with his fingertips.

The touch is light, still so light, still testing his own limits.

But touching Tony is easy. Touching Tony has always been the easier part. What is harder, much harder now, is to still his hands, and look into Tony's face. And to say, "I will."

Tony’s face lights up in a smile, and it is greater, brighter, fiercer than any sun Loki's ever seen.

Perhaps there will be time later, for apologies. For forgiveness, and explanations, and even more anger. Perhaps. But for now they move together, Tony coming to Loki and Loki to Tony. It’s impossible to tell who moves first, but it is Loki who sinks his hand into the soft hair at the base of Tony's neck, and kisses him.

Here in the electricity of Tony’s presence are all of Loki’s missing parts, and the answers to every question he’d asked himself for ten years. Here is the solution to countless nights spent winding his way between realms, hating to be alone and hating to find the company of others because something, without fail, would call his thoughts back to Tony.

He’d known that Tony searched for him, and in the quietest moments could feel Tony’s plaintive call like a beacon. But he had kept away, barring himself from going to him earlier and forcing himself to stop wondering which of them he was punishing. Forced himself too, to forget this. The blank, wild wonder of Tony’s lips against his, his hands catching tight in the leather folds of Loki’s mantle, the soft sound Tony makes as he deepens the kiss.

Here is fire, warmth, and light enough to chase away the chill of ten long, wandering years.

Loki stays.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Shapeshifting, Apple Picking' was never supposed to have a sequel, but then wrecked_anon emailed me a little drabble sequel she wrote which tore me up with feelings, and then we ended up gchatting over 2k at each other in a new game we like to call Fic Chicken. Just another Sunday night. 
> 
> Thanks to vilefangirl for being our #1 vile beta.


End file.
